Dean
took Sam’s words to heart. He didn’t try to get him back
and didn’t try to hunt alone again. He stopped in to visit Lisa
and Ben, but instead of it leading to something between them, it just
showed how alone he was inside. Dean couldn’t handle the extra
reminder being around them day-in, day-out would bring. Instead, he
got an apartment the next town over and a job as a mechanic. They
hung out a couple times a month, usually dinner and a dvd or teaching
Ben about engines.

Everything
felt empty and nothing Dean did changed that. He went to church a few
times on the barest hope of finding some peace, but wasn’t even
a little surprised when he stayed empty. He got up, went to work, ate
dinner, watched tv, and went to bed every day. The monotony was oddly
soothing; probably because his entire life had been spent on the road
and never knowing what would come after him.

Thoughts
of Sam intruded when he least expected it. More times than he could
count, Dean saw some douchebag at the garage or in the grocery or in
traffic cutting him off and thought about telling Sam when he got
home only to remember he couldn’t. Drinking helped, but he
knew that pickling his liver wasn’t going to solve anything.
The guys at the garage thought he was a surly bastard and left him
alone, so no friends to be found there. A few times, Dean found
himself cleaning one of the guns he no longer used and wondering why
he didn’t just end it. Only knowing what waited on the other
end of a suicide stayed his hand.

“Dean.”

Dean
nearly shot himself by accident at Castiel’s soft call of his
name. He dropped the gun onto the table and glared over at the angel.
“Next time, try not to sneak up on someone cleaning a gun,
huh?”

He
hadn’t seen Castiel since that day, months ago now, and took a
good look at the angel. He looked… haggard. Like someone had
been riding him non-stop, chipping away at the foundation of him with
a very large ice pick. “What’s wrong?”

Castiel
frown outright. “Nothing. I… wanted to see how you
were.”

Dean’s
eyebrows lifted and he said skeptically, “Sure. After months of
no contact, not even the whisper of your wings, you just drop by to
say hi. Cut the bullshit, Cas. What’s wrong?”

“I…”
words seemed to fail Castiel, who just stared at Dean.

Dean
sighed and scrubbed fingers through his hair. “Sit.”

When
Castiel didn’t move, Dean took him by the shoulders and moved
him, pushing him gently onto the sofa and then sitting next to him,
slouching back onto the cushions. They sat there for several minutes
and Dean eventually closed his eyes, glad for the company of someone
who knew what he'd been through, someone who demanded nothing from
him. Interacting with people had gotten steadily worse over the last
month as Christmas approached and people kept telling him to ‘Cheer
up! It’s the holidays!’ until he wanted to bash their
faces in.

“Crowley
wants to help me regain control of Heaven.”

Goosebumps
broke out all over Dean at the calm pronouncement. Fear slithered
through him seconds later. Fear that Castiel had already said yes and
was working with the new King of Hell. He took several deep breaths
and forced himself not to fly off the handle. He didn’t have a
lot of family left and couldn’t afford to lose Cas to freakin’
Crowley, of all people. “That’s throwing the baby out
with the bathwater, don’t you think, Cas?”

Cas
sounded puzzled when he asked, “Why would you throw out a
baby?”

Dean’s
lips twitched, almost making a grin but failing pretty epically. He
opened his eyes and found Cas staring intently at him; no surprise
there. “Why would you get hitched to the King of Hell?”

“I’m
losing, Dean. I’m losing Heaven and my friends are dying;
friends who followed me because I said I knew the right thing to do.
Crowley knows how to get power so I don’t fail,” Castiel
said bluntly.

Crowley
knew how to manipulate, no doubt about that. He hadn’t been the
best crossroads demon for no reason, after all, couching his
recruitment in the best possible light. Of course he would appeal to
Castiel’s compassion and need to save his friends. It was
probably the only thing that would get Cas to even consider teaming
up with the demon.

Dean
stared back at Castiel and said, “Crowley can suck my dick if
he says he’s doing it out of the goodness of his heart.”

Cas
actually did smile faintly at that. “He did not. He wants a
share of the power. Really, I think he will simply try to take the
power from me before I can properly utilize it.”

“So
why risk it?”

“If
I lose, Heaven falls.”

Dean
sighed and turned sideways to face Castiel. He covered Cas’
hand with his and pointed out gently, “Heaven’s already
fallen, Cas. You guys are in the middle of a civil war and angels are
killing each other. That’s not Heaven anymore, it’s a
battlefield.”

Cas
jerked his hand away and stood, stalking a short distance away and
then whirling around. “So I should abandon them all?”

Dean
stood as well and closed the distance between them. He stood right in
Cas’ space and stared into those too-blue eyes as he said,
“Then fuck ‘em. Seriously, Cas. You’ve given
enough. I’m not the only one who’s been killed in this
room. Or tortured. Or banished, for that matter. Alone. Who cares if
the other angels want a dictatorship? Maybe they work better that
way. Maybe… maybe free will isn’t for everyone, Cas, did
you think about that? That maybe God left a hierarchy
for you guys for a reason? All I know is that you’re so much
more
than all of them, so good. You deserve better than to be forced into
some skanky power play with Crowley. Don’t whore yourself out
for them, Cas; it is not
worth it.”

Castiel’s
head cocked a little to the side as he considered Dean. “Do you
love me, Dean?”

Dean
blinked a couple of times in surprise and then huffed out a faint
laugh. “You have the worst timing of anyone on this whole
planet, Cas. Seriously.”

“You
avoided the question.”

“Because
you don’t want to know the answer to it, not really.”

“I
do. Tell me. Do you love me?”

Dean
pursed his lips and then said slowly, “That’s not the
right question, Cas.”

Castiel
inched closer, not releasing his gaze. “What’s the right
question?”

Dean
leaned in and said, breathing against Cas’ mouth, “How do
I love you?” before gently touching their lips together in a
chaste kiss.

Castiel
pulled back after only a couple of seconds and continued to stare at
him… and then he vanished between one blink and the next.

Dean’s
mouth twisted bitterly and he said to no one, “Yeah, that
figures,” and went to grab the unopened bottle of Jack in the
cabinet.

*
* * *

Dean
woke up the next morning with his head feeling at least two times
smaller than normal and throbbing in protest against the shrunken
skull. His mouth tasted like something had died in it, and he had the
experience to back that up. Thankfully, the shades were down, keeping
the room dim, and he crawled to the bathroom without throwing up. He
took several minutes to whimper pathetically under a lukewarm shower
spray, brushing his teeth there so he didn't have to stand up any
longer than necessary, before drying off and stumbling back to bed.

He’d
just gotten comfortable and closed his eyes when the doorbell rang.
He groaned and pulled the pillow over his head, but it rang at steady
intervals, unceasing. He gave another pathetic whimper before giving
in and getting out of bed to see who the fuck could be trying to see
him on Christmas morning. He got halfway to the door before
remembering he was naked. Dean considered giving whoever it was an
eyeful to punish them for interrupting his hangover before groaning
and turning around to grab some clean boxers to pull on.

Finding
Castiel on the other side of the door was confusing and irritating.
He squinted at the angel for a few seconds, taking in his
extra-rumpled appearance and the bloody scrapes on his face. Cas
didn’t say anything, though, so Dean left the door open and
walked back towards the bedroom to get more sleep until the hangover
faded to livable levels. He heard the door close and the snick of the
deadbolt.

A
few seconds after he crawled back under the blankets, Dean heard the
rustle of clothes being shed and then the shower come on. Frowning,
he peered out from the blankets and, sure enough, steam started
trickling out of the bathroom where Castiel seemed to be taking a
shower. Dean mentally threw his hands up and closed his eyes again.
It certainly wasn’t the weirdest thing the angel had ever done.

The
shower turned off as Dean slid slowly into dozing, sinking into the
pillow and mattress. Sometime later, the bed dipped and warm, strong
arms gathered him in close. Dean mumbled a protest, but was too far
gone for several minutes to register that something felt strange…
Realization struck and Dean flailed, smacking Castiel in the face
with an elbow as he flung off the blankets and shouted, “Holy
shit you have a heartbeat!”

He
immediately moaned in pain, clutching at his head, and dropped back
down against a pillow.

Castiel
had let out his own pained noises, holding his face where the elbow
had connected. “I always had a heartbeat, Dean.”

He
sounded pissy, not that Dean really blamed him after getting clipped
in the face. That shit hurt. Dean took a deep breath and squinted
over at him. He looked… way too human with the scabbed over
scrapes on his cheek, the bruised eye just above it, and his damp
hair sticking up every which way.

Dean
hesitantly reached out and placed his hand over Castiel’s
heart. “Cas, what did you do?”

“I
fell,” Castiel replied simply. “I… do not wish to
be alone anymore. And as much as I want to lead my brethren to
freedom, you were right. Crowley is not the answer. If they truly
want to be free, they will do so on their own. I cannot fight and win
this battle on my own. I no longer wish to do so.”

Dean’s
free hand shook a little as he reached out to twine it with
Castiel’s, knotting their fingers together and bringing it up
to place against his own heart. “Jesus. Cas. You didn’t
have to fall
to do that!”

Castiel
tightened his grip on Dean’s hand and said, “I did. I…
I did not think that you could love me, before, but you did. Why did
you never say?”

Dean
sighed and looked away. “When would I have? You were dead set
on how things had to be, Cas. I didn’t really figure into your
plans because I’m not an angel. I couldn’t help you in
your fight up there.”

“So
you would have lived alone for the rest of your life?”

“Yeah,
probably. Well, I’m not saying I couldn’t have, I don’t
know, found someone to be with eventually, I guess. Would’ve
taken a long time, though.”

Castiel
drew him close again and carefully pulled him down so they were
stretched out together on the bed. Dean let out a long sigh and
curled up around the other man, an arm over his chest and his head
resting on Castiel’s shoulder. The hangover hadn't disappeared,
but it had been temporarily blown apart by the shock of what Cas had
done and the fact that he was there,
with Dean.

“Ask
me how I love you.”

Dean
smiled faintly at Castiel’s soft question and pressed his lips
to the warm, skin nearest him. It was about all he could manage with
the tempo picking back up in his aching head. “How do you love
me?”

Castiel
kissed the top of his head and murmured, “Agape, eros, philia,
storge. I love you in all ways, Dean, and wish to pledge myself to
you for the rest of our lives.”

Dean’s
smile graduated into a real one and he complained a little, “You
couldn’t have told me that before I drank a bottle of Jack?”

Castiel
chuckled a little and said, “I was somewhat preoccupied at the
time.”

Dean
hitched his leg over Cas’ and, if his head had been in any kind
of shape for it, would have followed up with a hell of a lot more
than just that. Since that kind of serious movement was out of the
question, he just savored being held and holding in return. Just in
case he hadn’t been clear the night before, he said, “I
love you, too, Castiel, and I’m gonna stick with you the rest
of our lives. You’re never getting rid of me.”

No
one ever claimed Dean knew how to respect boundaries after all.

Castiel
squeezed him tight and said, “Good.”

Dean
closed his eyes, relieved and working on happy. At least he wasn’t
going to be obsessed alone anymore. Cas would be with him every step
of the way.

A
few quiet moments later… “Can we have pie for Christmas
dinner?”

Dean
grinned broadly and kissed Cas without even bothering to open his
eyes. “Damn skippy we’re having pie for Christmas dinner.
Just, let me sleep off the hangover first.”

Castiel
kissed the top of his head and Dean fell asleep smiling a few minutes
later.